Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Day Five: The Singing Circus Bus, An Egyptian Queen, Actual Fish Food, and a Game of I Spy.

Next Stop: St. Thomas. I don't know a whole lot of historical background when it comes to the island of St. Thomas, so sorry, but I do know that Coki Point Beach is the most beautiful cove/point/beach I have ever been to. I was lucky enough to go twice, once with the entire Saunders side of my family when I was about 12, and now again for my senior trip.

Holy Shhmokes. It is absolutely gorgeous.

The water is clear the sand is white this beautiful place is out of sight. A poem for you all.

I think I will call it: Coki Point Beach. ;)

EXCEPT IM GETTING AHEAD OF MYSELF

What good would my deep creatively thought up section headers be if I didn't even use them? For those of you that are super concerned with hearing about The Singing Circus Bus, you would all get to the end of this post and be like "Wait.. there was nothing in there about a song, or a bus.." Or if it was mentioned.. but out of order.. you'd be like.. "Wait.. The Game Of I Spy was supposed to come after the Actual Fish Food, so why am I playing that game right now?"

I apologize. That will never happen, so let me back track just a smidge.

Fun fact about the word smidge that I am just now figuring out thanks to the red line under that word: People use it all the time, but it's not an actual real word recognized by Webster, or even Google. Smidgen however, is very much a real word. Feel free to use both because it makes no difference to me or anyone else. I will continue to do the same.
To dissolve any confusion, I have taken the liberty of defining both.

Smidgen: N. A small amount of something

Smidge: N. The same thing as Smidgen.
ANYWAY
BACKING IT UP A SMIDGE: We get off of the boat and these cute little open-air buses were out front ready and willing to take us to our favorite beach ever that I had been dreaming about since the last time I had been there. These busses are special, let me tell you. For whatever reason, when I went with my family, we named the bus "The Circus Bus" because why? It just fits. On the way up we sang songs, and my friends and I continued the tradition by singing all of the way to the beach which was about fifteen minutes away. This bus has no glass in the windows, so everyone on the island got a wake up call, and the other passengers on the bus (from Bulgaria if I remember correctly) enjoyed a full fifteen minute ride of three 18 year old girls belting the heck out of "Rude" by Magic."Why you gotta be so rude?"
It was ironic because the passengers, bus driver, and half of the island were thinking the same thing.
;)

We got to the beach. We looked at the beach. We looked at the ocean.
Refer to my new poem titled "Coki Point Beach" above for further detail.
Just then, a woman who introduced herself as Minty, came up to us and told us to get some sweet braids from her as soon as possible. Of course we were all sorts of gung-ho about this idea, and we let her practically pull out all our hair in a painful way, in order to look like the whitest island girls you've ever seen.
Pain = Beauty
More examples of this: High heels, waxing, poking your eye with mascara, flat iron burns, ear piercing and child birth.
A super cool thing about Minty, she was way nice and she had a sister named Nefertiti, after the Egyptian Queen famous for achieving the status of a Pharaoh, which is insanely impressive for the times, her being a woman. I don't have a middle name, so I can choose my own right? My full name is now: Ryanne Nefertiti Saunders. The sister of Minty's was there with us the whole time that we got our hair braided, and she was just as awesome as Minty. When I asked about their sisterhood, Minty told me that they are sisters in spirit. Their friendship reminds me of my own friendships, sisters in spirit. After we got our hair braided we hit the beach and got some sweet snorkeling in.
My dad decided to do a dive and I was lucky enough to go with him. We were super excited because Miki and her dad also decided to come with us on a discovery dive.
Some cool things about this dive: The tiny crab I got to play with, the fish, more fish, coral, a stingray, and thousands of sea urchins.
While we were down there, the other dive guide gave us some dog snacks to feed to the fish. They were literally eating out of our hands, it was super sick to be able to feel them nibble on my finger at the dog biscuits and much more enjoyable than my homemade fish food.

STING RAY PIC
We went back to the boat and ate food. It was fantastic, and so was that day.

DAYS 6 and 7 and a Few Here and Theres Just For Fun: Shut Up Adam, Dive In Movie, DANCE, That One Girl Lives On, and Groovy Tunes With Keith.

The rest of the days on our senior trip were at sea. Basically I can sum most of it up like this: Napping on deck with a margarita in one hand, pizza available all day until two in the morning every day not just the last two, reading, eating, all you can eat burger bar and taco bars, sleeping, pool, and a whole bunch of other really great things. One thing that we all agreed throughout the week that was not so great, was how many times the director of the ship, Adam, would make an announcement. IT was honestly about every half hour that we would here an annoying musical sound over the intercom to let everyone know that Adam was about to say something pointless and loud, or repetitive. Every time we heard that musical signal we felt the need to almost yell SHUT UP ADAM. He meant well maybe, but those announcements woke us up periodically... which was not super cool Adam. I think Adam just really loved to talk.. a lot. A couple of nights during the week we went to what was called "Dive In Movies"

Get it? lol.

We saw Captain America: Winter Soldier one night and it was fantastic, how could it not be I mean

Captain America>>>

One night we went to a musical//show, it was pretty entertaining and we got to stand up and dance with the cast.

One of the most hilarious nights on the ship, was the night we went to the comedian show. Now I know what you're thinking, of course it was one of the most hilarious nights.. It was a comedian... but he was not the one that made us laugh at that show even though we were hysterically doing so.

What happened was that we hurried out of dinner to get to this show, but we were still a few minutes late. We sat down in the back and a few minutes into his joke, we started to pick up on the fact that it wasn't a joke.. yet, but he was in fact asking a young girl about the huge bandages on her leg. She then proceeded to tell him of the incident she had had on Half Moon Cay when her bike tour somehow left her failing to notice that she had crashed and scraped up her leg pretty badly. The entire room was laughing, and saying "aww the poor dear" and the comedian turned her story into a few different jokes and moved on. Meanwhile we were dying of laughter and humiliation because That One Girl was now a source of entertainment because I failed to notice her crash.. Poor sweet girl. What kind of animals would leave her behind like that?

Who knows.. but it must be a crazy world out there to not know for sure if your bike tour group has your back or not if you were to accidentally crash.

Everyday the ship gave us these news papers to tell us about the activities that were going on all day, there was some pretty wacky ones. Chinese acupuncture, Starwars trivia time, bingo, other shows, but our favorite one was Groovy Tunes With Keith. Every night. We didn't go, but it was still our favorite because we got to imagine just what it would be like to meet this Keith dude, and experience his tunes that legend has it.. are groovy to the maximum level. Imagining that every time we read the itinerary and it had Groovy Tunes With Keith on it.. was way more fun than the actual show could have been, but we still wish to this day that we had gone to at least one.. Keith could have signed something for me. Or gave me a lock of his silver hair. It changed everyday as we argued about what color or if he had any hair..

I think we decided he has silver dreadlocks but none of us actually have a clue.

There was a hairy chest contest... Nuff said. No I didn't win.. It was boys only, and it was gross.

I hope you are enjoying these splurges as they come to my head.

Ice Cream machine 24/7

I practiced my solo for dance a few times in the work out room in front of the mirrors, and one of the dancers on the ship was in there for a jog. He came over and watched my solo and gave me some pointers and asked me which fancy shmancy New York School of Dance I went to... I told him the truth.. Highschool Drill Team in Plain City, Utah. Not quite as exciting, but the surprised look on his face was a great compliment.. It was interesting.

The treadmills were super tech.

Okay I think I have explained just about everything about my adventure aboard the senior trip express.. ship. I would and will have more pictures but it just so happens that as I am writing this, I have just started a new adventure.. I am currently on an island. Arrived yesterday and will be here for two months so lots of adventures to come. Not lots of pictures for this post because.. my pics are at home seven hours away by plane. I will edit it later! Anyway that senior trip was fun to say the least. Stay tuned for my new adventures as a new adult that has just left the nest for her first time.. Scary. She is also on the island of Marthas Vineyard off of the east coast for two months.. she has a view of the ocean from her apartment and she is writing in third person which is super obnoxious and scolding herself because she is me. :)